FirefinderFire lookouts of the US

Fire lookout · Pierce County, Washington

Shriner Peak Lookout

The oldest of Mount Rainier's four surviving fire lookouts, built 1932, restored, and still used in high fire danger.

Visit & stay

Not rentable. As far as we know, this lookout cannot be booked for overnight stays.

Access

Open to the public. within Mount Rainier National Park, reached by trail; not a rental

Can you climb it?
No
Road to the top?
No, you have to hike
Trail
trail access within the park; NPS structure, not open for public entry
Staffing
Unknown

Facts

Status
Standing
Type
Two-story buildingtwo-story NPS standard design, 14x14 ft cab with catwalk, ground-floor storage roomThe design: National Park Service lookout
Built of
Wood
Built
1932
Height
Unknown
Elevation
5,746 ft (1,751 m)
Agency
National Park Service
Land
Federal land
Location
Pierce County, Washington
Coordinates
46.81354, −121.53045
This entry
VerifiedResearched, then checked independently. Updated 8 Oct 2026.
Firefinder id
us-wa-shriner-peak

View from the cab

What you see from the cab: every ridge out to about 93 miles, the named peaks in sight, and other fire lookouts within view, worked out from terrain data in your browser.

Downloads about 3.9 MB of terrain data the first time.

Or see what it could see on the map: the ground in its line of sight.

History

Then and now

  1. 1932 Builtbuilt to a standard NPS Branch of Plans and Designs planSources: nhlr.org, en.wikipedia.org
  2. No record between 1932 and 1980
  3. 1980 Last staffedstaffed into the 1980s per Fire Lookout Museum accountSource: firelookout.com
  4. 1991 Eventadded to National Register of Historic Places, March 13, 1991Source: en.wikipedia.org
  5. 1996 Added to the National Historic Lookout Registerregistered on National Historic Lookout Register, December 15, 1996Source: nhlr.org
  6. 2007 RestoredSeverely damaged in the late-2006 winter storm; got a new roof and was mostly repaired.Source: firelookout.org
  7. No record between 2007 and 2026
  8. 2026 Restoredrestored following original plans; still used in critical fire weather per NHLRSource: nhlr.org
  9. TodayStandingIt still stands, as far as our sources know.

Old maps of this spot

USGS topographic maps from the years a lookout stood may show it, often as a small symbol labelled “Lookout”. See the old topo maps around it on the Firefinder map, or find every scanned sheet of this spot on USGS TopoView (click the spot there to list them, with dates and downloads).

Story

Researched 4 Oct 2026, fact-checked.

Shriner Peak Lookout went up in 1932, built to a standard design from the National Park Service's own Branch of Plans and Designs.1 It's a two-story wood-frame tower with a 14-by-14-foot cab and a catwalk around the outside, with a ground-floor storage room below the living and lookout space on top.1,2 The design was typical of Park Service rustic architecture from that era, and the building is part of the larger Mount Rainier National Historic Landmark District, which covers the park's whole collection of Park Service-designed structures.1

The lookout was staffed on and off into the 1980s, part of the network of fire watchers keeping an eye on the forests around Mount Rainier.3 It's the oldest of the four fire lookouts still standing in the park.2,1

Rather than falling into the disrepair that claimed so many of its contemporaries, Shriner Peak was restored to its original plans.2 It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 13, 1991, and later placed on the National Historic Lookout Register on December 15, 1996.1,2

Today the lookout still stands watch above a view of Mount Rainier, and it's still used during periods of high fire danger.2 It sits in Pierce County within Mount Rainier National Park, reached by trail; it is not set up as a rental.4 As with other historic lookouts in Mount Rainier National Park, visitors should treat it as a protected structure on NPS land rather than a place to climb or let themselves into.

  1. Shriner Peak Fire Lookout, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shriner_Peak_Fire_Lookout (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  2. Shriner Peak Lookout, National Historic Lookout Register, http://nhlr.org/lookouts/us/wa/shriner-peak-lookout/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  3. Shriner Peak Lookout, firelookout.com (Fire Lookout Museum / Pete Sabin collection), https://www.firelookout.com/wa/shrinerpeak.html (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩
  4. Shriner Peak, Washington lookout list, Forest Fire Lookout Association, https://firelookout.org/lookouts/us/wa/ (accessed 2026-10-04). ↩

Photos

Photo of Shriner Peak Lookout
Photo: National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved · source
Shriner Peak in 1955
Shriner Peak in 1955 (1955)Photo: the Fire Lookout Museum, Pete Sabin collection and Tammy McLeod, via firelookout.com · source
Shriner Peak in 1956
Shriner Peak in 1956 (1956)Photo: the Fire Lookout Museum, Pete Sabin collection and Tammy McLeod, via firelookout.com · source
Shriner Peak in 2003
Shriner Peak in 2003 (2003)Photo: the Fire Lookout Museum, Pete Sabin collection and Tammy McLeod, via firelookout.com · source
Photo of Shriner Peak Lookout
Photo: CBGCUP, via Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Photo of Shriner Peak Lookout
Photo: TrailChick Washington lookout guide (trailchick.com) · source

Photos keep their own rights and are shown with credit. Is one of these yours? You can ask for a different credit or for removal.

Sources

  1. National Historic Lookout Register (NHLR) Gave us: name, location, county, elevation, what it is built of, register numbers, agency, ownership, dates, photos, links National Historic Lookout Register (nhlr.org) · All rights reserved (American Resources, Inc.); facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  2. Forest Fire Lookout Association (FFLA) - US lookout lists Gave us: type, status, register numbers, links Forest Fire Lookout Association (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts extracted only, no prose copied. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  3. firelookout.com -- Rex Kamstra's Forest Fire Lookout Page Gave us: dates, photos, links firelookout.com · No licence stated on the site; facts only (coordinates, elevation, built/destroyed years, design, agency). Photos mirrored with the site's stated credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  4. Forest Fire Lookout Association chapter reports Gave us: dates, links Forest Fire Lookout Association, chapter and restoration-grant reports (firelookout.org) · No licence stated; facts only (dates, names, the kind of work done). Every note is our own wording and every event links to the FFLA report it comes from. Positions are copied from the NHLR, FFLOS and FFLA records. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  5. Wikidata -- US fire lookout towers (Q748998 and subclasses) Gave us: register numbers, photos, links Wikidata · CC0 1.0 (Wikidata). Images keep their own Commons licence/credit. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  6. OpenStreetMap -- fire lookout structures Gave us: register numbers, links © OpenStreetMap contributors · ODbL 1.0. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors. · retrieved 4 Oct 2026
  7. FOREST LOOKOUTS -- western US (Ron Kemnow's weebly sites) Gave us: links Ron Kemnow's Forest Lookouts sites (westlookouts, californialookouts, idaholookouts, montanalookouts, oregonlookouts and washingtonlookouts .weebly.com) · No licence stated; facts only (county, land manager, status word, coordinates where the page's own map widget gives them, township-range-section, height and design hints, links). The site's own newspaper quotes, citations and narrative are not reproduced. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  8. TrailChick: Washington State Fire Lookouts Gave us: photos, links TrailChick (trailchick.com) · No licence stated; facts only (county, land manager, coordinates, elevation, lookout type, years built). The guide's text is not reproduced; its card photos are listed with credit to TrailChick, for the project's photo mirroring. · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  9. WillhiteWeb.com: Washington Fire Lookouts Gave us: links WillhiteWeb.com · No licence stated; names and page links only (the site's photos and text are not reproduced). · retrieved 8 Oct 2026
  10. Firefinder research Gave us: summary, design, status, agency, access, visiting details, dates, links, fact-check Firefinder research (sources cited in the story footnotes) · Our own research notes; each fact cites its source in the lookout's story

More about this lookout elsewhere

Firefinder takes facts (places, dates, numbers) from these sources and writes its own words. See all sources and licences.